Every so often I end up writing a real world post, and this is that morning. As a result I tend not to syndicate these terribly widely because it isn’t exactly the sort of thing for mass consumption. These are just me talking with you my long term readers about what happens to be going on in my life. To prime the pump here is a delightful picture of Kenzie and Josie… and it makes me realize that Josie certainly has grown significantly. Also it makes me realize how bad the giant hole that the cats have tore in the stairwell landing looks. The hole started its life as a worn spot in the carpet because they put down really cheap carpet when they flipped this house and we have not gotten our shit together to the point to decide what the hell to do about it. The cats however helped make that hole basically an exposed spot of bare plywood.
This is “four” a new addition to our outdoor cats that visit us from time to time. Four is pretty young and seems to largely be unbothered by our presence. While taking this photo my wife was a few yards away sitting on the patio off our bedroom. Four is completely chill and flopped on the concrete under the table and while he bolts for a moment when there is movement… seems to reset back to the default operation he was previously doing rather quickly. I love the existence of our outdoor cat family, but I have noticed that their presence has meant a lack of the usual bunnies and birds. I just want them to be friendly enough to visit us while we are out there.
Here is the point at which we pivot drastically from adorable cats… to Covid 19. March 20th was my last day in the office during what my friends and I have started to refer to as “The Before Times”. So I was fully remote for 13 weeks, but now have been feeling a certain amount of pressure to at least start showing up a few days a week in the office. It is not so much that I was given an ultimatum, but effectively if I did not start returning before the 30th of June, I would need to come up and clean out my office. I am not exactly sure WHY we need to clean out offices because after two days in the office it still feels like an absolute skeletal crew up there. I had a spare mask I was not using and decided that Giant Cthulhu Pop needed to do his part… or at least could hold it for me.
When I say that there is no one there… this image illustrates that point. This is on the floor of the parking garage with the tunnel that connects to our building In the before times… this would be wall to wall cars and I would not be able to find a spot to park. Even at 7 am in the morning when I normally roll into the parking garage, I would have had to have parked one floor away in either direction to find a space. The building itself is on mask protocols and social distancing, with things like elevators limited to only four people at a time. The thing is… I never rode in an elevator with more than just one other person. On a normal morning rush… there were lots of times I was in an elevator with ten people crammed in.
Ultimately I had planned on shifting to a few days a week in the office and the rest of the days remote as my normal schedule. The problem is… I kept waiting for things to get better but they just haven’t. The above image represents the general curve of infections that we have experienced in the county I live in. The blue diamonds represent phase 1, 2 and 3 of reopening the state and the green stars represent memorial day weekend, the beginning of the protests, and the trump rally. As of yesterday we had a single day high of 259 new cases identified in the county and of course… this was the week that I decided to poke my head out of my hidey hole and go back to work. I am more than a little terrified that I might have been exposed to something have have brought it home to my wife who has also been remote this entire time.
I didn’t exactly feel unsafe while in my office, because everyone there was equally mandated to be wearing masks anytime there was a chance of interaction. However that also means that most of us were unmasked at our desks sharing the same recirculating air. In some ways I am glad I left the house because I had developed a tangible fear of doing so. During the entirety of the thirteen week period, I had only been in two buildings with more than a few people at a time. I’ve been lucky enough to be able to schedule hands free grocery pick up, and only needed to go to I think three stores… all three of which had a minimal number of people in them. However the longer I went without venturing forth… the more insurmountable that task seemed to be. I now absolutely understand how someone finds themselves afraid to go out into the world.
I did do something silly while I was in the office, and took a photo of my sheet of cheapo Dollar Tree stickers. This is kinda dumb but one of the things I would do, when someone did something really cool is that I would slap a sticker on the opening of their cube. I kinda miss being able to do that, so I sorta want to try and turn these into icons that I can use in teams. It is silly but weirdly people really seemed to like getting “good job” thumbs up stickers, so I guess that is something that you never quite grow out of. I did have to alter my pattern of giving them out, because at first I was just sticking them on the top of the cube wall… until I realized that most of my employees couldn’t see up there.
The problem now is I am trying to decide what I should do. Do I continue going back into the office next week on Tuesday and Wednesday… or do I resign myself to just going up and cleaning out my office over the long holiday weekend? The reason why I am so concerned is illustrated in the above chart, which shows the raw data points that have not been smoothed into a curve. Our previous high was 143 on June 20th… and then 4 days later it spiked up to 259 on the 24th. The periodic dips that you see make up for the fact that there just isn’t much testing that occurs over the weekend. I live in a part of the country where masks are just not worn… the few stores I have been in my wife and I represented the sole mask wearers and got a lot of nasty looks as a result. This is why I generally feel like it isn’t very safe to leave my house, let alone return to anything resembling a normal daily cadence.
Something has to change or things are just going to get out of control. I am not sure if that thing means a rolling back of the opening or something like mandating that masks be worn in public. Whatever the case something needs to change now because we are already past the point of making a significant difference any time soon. I fully expect that this is our lives for the next few years, and I wish I had the magical thinking that some of my coworkers do about the recovery bouncing back within a few months. Also… I would really prefer not to die, which is what escalates my fear given my multiple warning signs suggesting that if I did catch it… I would probably have a really bad time. I realize this is a bit of a downer post, but sometimes my blog is therapy and I needed to get some of these thoughts out of my head this morning. I did give you cats before I careened off the cliff though.
To slight clarify, the article claims the risk of transmission goes from 17.4% to 3.1% with a mask. I haven’t read the article, but transmission risk on contact is going to be one of the major parameters in any model of ro (along with how many susceptible individuals you tend to contact while infectious). Assuming that’s any where near correct (and I’m not misinterpreting the original study I haven’t read!), even a ro of 4 would potentially drop to under 1.
The whole thing with face masks upsets me. Do you want to get Covid-19 under control without destroying the economy? Then everyone needs to wear face masks. For example take the study summarized here:
https://www.businessinsider.com/face-masks-social-distancing-curb-spread-coronavirus-research-2020-6
If those numbers are correct, it suggests that ro (the realized transmission rate) of covid could be lowered by an order of magnitude if everyone just wore masks. We only need to get ro to under 1 for covid to start dying out instead of increasing in frequency. The highest estimates I have seen for ro are 4 (which is terrifyingly high if you are wondering, it means that on average every infected individual spreads it to four more). However, even if covid really is just that bad, an order of magnitude decrease in transmission would almost completely wipe the virus out in a few months.
It’s weighing on my mind too, as the boss at work is starting the conversation about opening up the office more often – she, like a couple of colleagues, are lucky enough to be within cycling range of the building. For me it’s 2 trains, one underground for 25 minutes, passing through the busiest stations in the city where I live. So it’s really not something I’m willing to entertain at least until we see what happens 2 or so weeks after the lockdown is mostly removed here on 4 July. The acid test as far as I’m concerned is to see a fortnight after people return to pubs, restaurants, hairdressers etc – places where you linger a lot longer than grocery stores. We had the beginnings of loosening of rules a few weeks ago and the amount of masks we see on the streets nearby has been falling, despite the mandatory mask on transport rule. If you can afford to minimise going out I would say: we are lucky in that we have some financial stability, so work isn’t worth risking health over, I’m well aware not everyone is in that fortunate a position…
I’ve gotten a few dirty looks from young non-mask wearers myself here in central PA, though I’ve never been the ONLY one wearing one. PA has a mask mandate, but there is not exactly a penalty for being rude/thoughtless enough not to. It’s sad to hear that no one around you wears one even while cases are spiking hard in the area. Attitudes like that do make it hard to be optimistic about a true recovery anytime soon. In such an environment, with your health history, I would definitely say there is no such thing as too much caution!
I’m still at home on furlough even though my bookshop has been open for a couple of weeks now. They were anticipating trade would be sufficiently reduced that they wouldn’t need everyone back at once so they had a points system and also asked everyone if they were willing to come back, had concerns or were unwilling. I said iwas happy to come back but had a few concerns, mostly relating to being at the very upper end of the age group for people who work in my shop, and they just said fine,stay at home until we ask for you, Which as yet they haven’t.
It is feeling weird now, though, with a lot of things drifting abck to something that looks a little,like normal if you squint. Where I live, incidence of Covid19 is falling and we were already in the least-affected region of the whole country. Mrs Bhagpuss and I have been going out for walks every day since this thing started and I’ve been going to shop once a week. Mrs Bhagpuss has now started doing a little work, too. Even so, it’s been incredibly easy to get used to being in the house not seeing anyone. I’m glad we did make the efoort to go out regularly or as you say I think I might not have wanted to go out at all by now.
Masks are a mixed blessing. They don’t really do anything to protect the wearer. They’re there to stop you infecting other people. Also, to be effective, masks need to be changed and washed far more frequently than most people will be doing. Even so, I’m happier to see people wearing them when I’m out than not. I would guess about 25% of people wear them but they’re mandatory on public transport now and anywhere that social distancing can’t be maintained.
Good luck with whatever you decide to do. Looking at those graphs, if it was me I think I’d be cleaning my office out about now. Even if it ends up as a black mark against you in employment terms, you can always get another job. You can’t get another life.
Good post. As a sysadmin, I got lucky, as working from home is a norm…just extended now. I am also in one of the spiking states (NC). They JUST mandated masks yesterday. But, I live in ‘Hickville’ – Confederate flags, old farmers, etc. They won’t change.
I say base your feelings of office travel on your age, your health and your families health. If you are older than 30 and less than 50, you are in a good spot…but, especially based on health. If you are diabetic or have high blood pressure, you may want to start cleaning the desk out. (PS: If you smoke…DEFINITELY stay home)
For me…I have an autoimmune disease, 58 years old and high blood pressure…every day I am near someone without a mask or near other people feels like Russian Roulette.
Hope all goes well…stay safe and good luck!